Dreams, the plaything of the subconscious, the clay by which one's thoughts, one's fears, one's dreams molds its perception of the world. Little is known to why they sleep, and as such I know little about why they dreams, but I do know the power of dreams. They are raw perception, reality cast aside to present the extreme emotional responses through symbolism both direct and indirect. Every worry, every faint fear pushed to the back of the head during the course of the day, each hope let lose as a pack of dogs to destroy and build in the safety of fantasy.
***Transition***
After what seemed like the longest day of his life, Marco starts off up the stairs, shedding his apron as he walks. Star keeps close behind, having a much easier time than the bus boy. With a sigh Marco opens up the bedroom to inspect what was inside.
Like much of the tavern, the room was in shoddy condition. Only a single bed was located next to a splintered nightstand. A small lamp sits on the stand, a flint and steel resting by it, barley visible in deepening summer twilight. A short rug rested at the foot of the bed, just large enough for someone to lay on. There was only one blanket and pillow resting on the hay mattress and the entire room smelled faintly of stale sex.
"Of course there's only one bed," Marco grunts, straightening out his back with a small crack. "So I suppose you should have it Star."
She shakes her head, "no, my day was pretty easy, given I did it with magic. You should take it, you need the rest more than I do Marco." She smiles, "besides, it wouldn't be the first time I've slept on a hard surface, I've done a lot of camping."
Marco tries to protest, but Star cuts him off, "Come on, just take it. I'll be fine." She looks over at the bed, "Just give me the pillow and we'll call it even. It's warm enough that I shouldn't need a blanket."
Marco relents, tossing her the pillow. "Fine, I'll take the bed." He climbs in, rolling up the blanket to make a simple head rest for himself, "Good night Star."
Star lays over the rug, facing to the ceiling as the last of the late day light filters through the window, "goodnight Marco."
***Transition***
Yet again Star found herself in the Dream with mysterious dancer. Yet something felt strange, something felt cold. Instead of the uncomfortable heat that normally permeated her body during the romantic dance a chill was running up her body. Every eye felt like a needle prick on her skin, the hair raising on her neck, goose bumps on her skin becoming pronounced.
She pushes back against the man, leaving him grasping out for her in surprise. Quickly she turns and darts into the crowd, her world becoming a hazy mess of bodies and blurring faces of the underworld denizens. Something pushes, no, pulls at her and she tries to resist, running from the creeping terror in her body. Star tries to understand, to grasp at what this feeling is, this absolute, unknown fear. Something so irrational and strange that she understands the futility of running, yet runs anyways. The fear, such a completely encompassing specter of dread, leads her to run, and run, and run until she finds herself in a circle.
In the center of the clearing of jackals and ghouls and other monsters stands a familiar grin. The scaly mail that made the green skin of the beast was cracked into a cocky, half smile. His fingerless hand moves to adjust the red tie, the other running through his hair. "Wonderful to see you again Star."
The gripping dread only deepens further, the princesses breathing quickening. He was dead, he had to be dead, nothing could have survived that blast. Wordlessly she turns to sprint through the crowd, but it turns out to be a fruitless exercise as she finds herself on the other side of the exact same clearing.
Toffee turns, "don't run." He grin widens, "we have so much to discuss." He takes steps towards the girl, who moves to back into the crowd, but the bodies are too close together, acting as a wall barring her with the scaled maniac in the arena of bodies.
With a misty breath everything shifts again, Toffee sitting at the head of a table, slowly cutting into a meaty steak, cold eyes piercing through Star's soul. Star tries to rise, to run, to do anything, but her arms seem to be glued to the arms of the chair, her eyes forced to gaze across the table which seemed miles wide.
"Are you afraid Star?" He grins, "of course you are, though I think there is something missing." He looks into the glass case, the chair inside empty, void. With a sigh Toffee looks back, "is he safe? Is he ever safe?"
Star digs her nails into the wooden chair, the air around the table plummeting. "Let me go Toffee! I don't have time to play games!"
"Of course you don't, who knows how long he has without you," he says, but not from his body across the way. It came from directly behind the girl, sending a jolt to run down her spine. With a jerking spin the chair rotates, Toffee stopping it. He hunches over Star, eyes level to each others, his cold hands tightly gripping the end of the chair's arm. "It seems you don't have your wand," He grins, holding it up in front of her face, the star in the center intact. "You know I'm the one who wins."
Star glares up, mustering her courage in the face of the unnatural terror that creeps through her, but he was right, she didn't have her wand. She didn't have the strength to help herself, let alone others. With a growls she tries to resist against the malevolent force acting against her, the oppressive sensations keeping her down.
Toffee grins, stepping back with the wand in tow, "you still haven't told me why you're afraid, little girl. Can you even answer?" He spins on his heel, griping each end of the wand in his hand, whispering gently to it. "Here," he says, tossing it back to her, the star beginning to lose its color. "Take it." With a wicked grin he continues into the darkness, disappearing from the scene.
Star begins to panic, trying to wiggle herself free from the chair as the hum and glow from the wand grows. "Bastard!" She shouts, "Snake!" She defiantly struggles, sweat beading down her face, but it was all for naught. Before she could move the wand went off, blinding Star, sending a searing pain across her body.
Clack, the ivory piece glides across the board, white opening with a center pawn. Star's hand moves in response, opening with the right knight. White responds, pieces moving as if controlled by a ghost. Thoughtlessly Star responds, not even certain what she was doing.
"Who are you playing," a voice asks. It was cold, measured and dark. The baritone comes from all around, but simultaneously sounding singular and contained.
Star moves the piece, "I'm not certain." She looks at the table across from her. All she sees is a blackness and an empty chair made of dark wood, lovingly inlaid with gold leaf.
"Why are you playing," it asks, Stars eyes scanning around to find the voice as it speaks. "Why play no one?"
Star shakes her head, "It isn't no one. I just don't know who."
"Is it Toffee? Marco? Your mother?"
Star looks harder at the empty chair, a phantasm of her opponent beginning to appear before her. The longer she focuses, the clearer she becomes, but a pain in her head slowly builds with it. With a grunt, she looks away, blinking multiple times. "It hurts, I can't see who it is."
"Try harder. You can see, but you chose to be blind. You know the answer, but force yourself to be ignorant."
The pieces clack against the wooden board again, white takes black bishop. She looks back again, her mind filling with a fiery pain. White takes black rook, white takes black pawn, black takes white pawn, black enters check. The pieces click and clack around the board as Star stares at her foe.
The misty body slowly solidifies, features slowly growing. The face was pale and soft, but the eyes absent, glossy and white. Her blond hair flows far down her back, her royal blue dress torn and tattered. The pain subsides as the image completes itself, a mirror of Star.
White takes black queen, checkmate.
The board resets, the game beginning again, playing exactly the same way as the last. The voice speaks, "who are you playing against Star Butterfly."
She shakes her head, blinking to try to dismiss the trick before her. "Myself," she says slowly, her voice pensive, "no, part of me." She moves her hand, but differently from any of the other games, black takes white rook.
A dark cackle emanates from the darkness, the rumbling voice resonating through Star. "Reality, perception, abstraction, and then symbolism. These are your symbols." A rushing wind begins to pick up, blowing up a dust storm in the room, "but what else is there to see?"
The storm becomes blinding, stinging, and coarse, each moment under its baleful gale a flurry of pain. Star raises her hands to shield her face, coughing and hacking before kneeling over and out of her chair. As the storm, dies she finds herself in yet another place.
She rests at the base of a grassy hill, crimson shimmering in the full moon's light. At the crest of the hill, looking forward with her back turned was a tall woman, her body full and powerful. A raven braid of hair rolled down to the base of her spine. Her body was covered in an ebony plate inlaid with golden leaf, scabbard buckled behind her back. In her right hand was a long, thin blade, a small drip pushing off the tip in time with an unheard, morbid rhythm.
Star felt a pang of guilt as she looked at the figure, but even more than that a strange attraction. She understood that she should be afraid, but something about the way the figure stood, how her ivory skin glowed in the glow of the moon, that made her a peculiar comfort to Star.
Star tries to walk up the hill, but find every step she takes is stolen back by the land. The hill seems to stretch forever, yet the form stood mere yards away. "Hey," Star calls, trying to gain the woman's attention.
The woman turns her head, dark red eyes piercing through Star, stopping her dead. "Tell me, Star Butterfly, what covers my blade?" She holds it, letting the red stains it bares glint in the moonlight. "The way is free, follow if you wish." With a flick of her wrist, she sheds the viscous liquid from her sword and sheaths it. Taking steps over the crest of the hill, the form disappears from sight, leaving Star in thought.
Suddenly her mind realizes what covers the hill, suddenly becoming nauseous. The red sunrise glow illuminates the colors more clearly. Splatterings of blood cover the hill. Star jumps back, but slips and tumbles downward, her white dress staining in both green and crimson, her hair knotting and jumbling into a mess.
The hill transforms and morphs into a castle hall, but one of warmth and color, not the cold stone of Ludo's dwelling. The roll slows as she reaches the bottom her dress has several tears in it and is stained irrevocably red.
She rises, clutching her head and taking in the location. There was a long table of masked men and women, speaking calmly and eating daintily from a prepared feast. At the head of the table, in a grand velvet throne, sits a woman of small frame, her mask holding back any truths of her. She wore a tightly held grey dress with filling frills and complex trimmings and trappings. The mask itself was the grandest in the room, inlayed with silver and gems. The finest part of it was the only part of the striking woman's face not covered by the mask, her eyes. They were a piercing gold, shimmering in the firelight of the dining hall.
On the other end of the dining table was the only party goer without a mask. Her deep red locks were cut short, but hung about her head messily. Her eyes, a dull brown, had more life in the, than any other Star had seen. She ate with a ferocity the other member lacked, clearly enjoying the food laid before her. Her dress was the same dull red as her hair, but of a plainer sort than her counterpart. It would best be described as a cocktail dress, having only one strap on her shoulder for support. She, unlike the rest of the party, laughed fully, and would, only for brief moments, have other guest lower their masks for her.
It took no time for the guests to see the intrusion, but they all ignored it, the most recognition Star received was the occasional glance. Star tried to find a door, but none existed in the room. Seeing no other option she watched on to the diner.
After a few minutes of quiet talking and eating a light ringing rang out. The golden eyed woman has clashed her fork into her crystal wine glass, calling the precession to attention. "We have all gathered here today for a mater of utmost importance. The future of our realm is being shaped at this very moment."
The red woman smiled and stood with her, taking control, "it is. These truly are crucial moments, undeniably so." She gives a sultry glare to the gold woman.
"Passions!" Declares the leader of the party, a resounding crack punctuating her words. The table began to slip, ever so slightly, running from the golden woman's head down a few inches.
"Let me speak Pressures!" Passions declares, another cracking noise filling the air as a similar wound to the table moves from her. "You have me in this court, you will listen to me."
"Passions, you are here for ceremony, for show. There is no true place for you here." The crack grows wider and longer, inching its way to the other woman from Pressures.
"As is that mask," she states, "remove it, and I might be compelled to sit, if it suited me." The damage widens, inching to the center point.
"Absolutely not. It is disgusting enough you are allowed to run rampant even in the court rooms, I will not let you see my face as well."
The cracks, mere inches from one another, continue to grow, the room beginning to growl and rumble. "Then I suppose you have made your choices Pressures."
"There is never a choice to make Passions." Pressures turns from the table, walking quickly away, finding a mew door by her wall, Passions follows suit and moves in the opposite direction. The other guest all got up, shimmering out slowly, leaving only the cracked table behind.
"Who are you, Star Butterfly?" A voice says from somewhere out of sight. It was the same voice as with the chess game. "Is there even an answer to that question?"
Star looked around, trying to find the voice. The room had darkened as the other guest left, leaving Star alone. When she looks back at the table a single candle was lit at its center, a single figure across from the dim light. The flickers sent long shadows across the wooden floor, and the light gave nothing of the man's character beyond the large coat he wore.
"Is the butterfly meant to sore? Or are its wings to be clipped, set up for display in a crystal cupboard?" The man shifts in his seat, lifting his head to reveal parts of his face. His eyes were black as pitch, his face white as snow. His face, bony, and slim, fashions itself into a cold glare, aiming directly at Star.
Something about the man's presence was fundamentally unsettling, the room dropping several degrees in temperature. His hand, boney and long, reaches up to his face, rubbing at his chin slowly. With a flick of his wrist, he extends his finger out to point at Star before drawing it back. A force tugs angrily at Star as response, dragging her into an out turned chair before swiveling her to face the man.
The man says nothing, merely looking over Star in contemplative silence. "This will do," he says slowly after some time. Her removes his trench coat, revealing a pressed suit of black and white, a bright red tie jumping from his otherwise muted color pallet.
"Who are you," Star asks, her voice shaky. Something just rose off of the man, as if he weren't alive, his foot halfway to the grave, but still he emanated an uncomfortable aura of power and control, an oppressive ray of energy beyond explanation.
"Not you," he says cryptically, "that should be all you need to know if you've been paying attention."
Star looks into the man's eyes, "then what should I call you?"
"For right now you can call me The Seeker." His eyes never leave Star, never once blinking.
With a shiver, Star continues, "All right Seeker, where are we?"
"Take some time to think about this place, what has happened and you'll find yourself with more questions for the next time we meet, but for right now I have seen all I need to." He stands straight and begins to move away from the table. "It will be a challenge," he warns before fading away, leaving Star truly alone.